Preview — Welcome to Heavenly Heights
by Risa Miller

Welcome to Heavenly Heights: A Novel

A first novel written by PEN Discovery Award Winner Risa Miller, Welcome to Heavenly Heights describes a group of American Jews who have left the United States, not just to move to Israel, but to live in a settlement on the West Bank. Miller conjures a culture and a movement--part religion, part pipe dream--viewed through the pinhole of one ragged apartment building's doorA first novel written by PEN Discovery Award Winner Risa Miller, Welcome to Heavenly Heights describes a group of American Jews who have left the United States, not just to move to Israel, but to live in a settlement on the West Bank. Miller conjures a culture and a movement--part religion, part pipe dream--viewed through the pinhole of one ragged apartment building's door: its families, their dinners, their weddings, their marriages, their sorrows. While bombs can be heard at the edges of these pages, it is inside the settlement, Heavenly Heights where Miller's delicate, understated prose limns the lives of these tender souls....more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published
January 16th 2003
by St. Martin's Press
(first published 2003)

Community Reviews

By and large this book didn't speak to me much. The writing was back and forth and difficult to follow with random POV shifts in individual chapters. The characters lacked a certain sense of dimension, making it difficult to feel for them (until the very end with the terror attack that killed two young boys, but the main character had already left Israel by that point.) I think Miller bit off a little more than she could chew, and should have focused more narrowly on the MC, Tova, as a fully fleBy and large this book didn't speak to me much. The writing was back and forth and difficult to follow with random POV shifts in individual chapters. The characters lacked a certain sense of dimension, making it difficult to feel for them (until the very end with the terror attack that killed two young boys, but the main character had already left Israel by that point.) I think Miller bit off a little more than she could chew, and should have focused more narrowly on the MC, Tova, as a fully fleshed out POV--though I also would have been interested to learn more about Debra, who grew up in Christian rural Kentucky with only a tangential relationship to her Jewish father.

I think, by and large, Miller captured the feel she was going for--that living in Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, is sort of like living in the wild west. Even in legal settlements like Heavenly Heights, there is an air about that the "settlers"--particularly those who choose to make aliyah from the United States--are living in a sense of lawlessness. There can be danger from Palestinian neighbors, and it's removed from the mainland with lots of barriers and soldier protections, so it can be difficult to get around or even deal with minor household repairs. I like the idea of humanizing the settlers, but this book fell a little short.

"The Ladies Auxiliary" by Tova Mirvis succeeded where this story failed in drawing several intriguing POV characters in an Orthodox community. If only it were set in the West Bank!...more

The author of this book is the first frum woman to win a PEN award, so naturally, I had to read it. It's written mainly from the POV of an American woman who goes to live in a settlement in Israel, but other chapters are written in the POV of other characters, and these are even more intriguing. My favorite was the wealthy Zionist philanthropist who makes the entire settlement possible, but the scene that hit home the most was a father's meeting with his son's school principal. The author sure gThe author of this book is the first frum woman to win a PEN award, so naturally, I had to read it. It's written mainly from the POV of an American woman who goes to live in a settlement in Israel, but other chapters are written in the POV of other characters, and these are even more intriguing. My favorite was the wealthy Zionist philanthropist who makes the entire settlement possible, but the scene that hit home the most was a father's meeting with his son's school principal. The author sure got the discomfort down pat! Frum readers should be warned that there are a few bedroom references here, but they're not gratuitous.

Because of this book, I'll never read the posuk "If I fail to put you above my chiefest joy" in the same way again. Even still, I liked it but didn't love it. The non-fiction memoir The Blessing of a Broken Heart more poignantly makes the point that living in Israel comes with great sacrifice. ...more

Hmmm... not one single character I could like/relate to... no plot... no real character development except for the generic unpleasantness of these women and the consistent blandness of their husbands... and the underlying message rather disturbing: Arabs appear only in vague mentions (as in 'the Arab construction workers') or as the invisible, unnamed terrorists who only show themselves through the havoc they wreak among the settlers --- if that is really how the latter see them or interact withHmmm... not one single character I could like/relate to... no plot... no real character development except for the generic unpleasantness of these women and the consistent blandness of their husbands... and the underlying message rather disturbing: Arabs appear only in vague mentions (as in 'the Arab construction workers') or as the invisible, unnamed terrorists who only show themselves through the havoc they wreak among the settlers --- if that is really how the latter see them or interact with them, no wonder the peace negotiations show such little progress.

Also, some of the sentences are so strangely constructed I sometimes found myself wondering what the author was trying to say.

Although this first novel is not very well written, it deals with a subculture seldom treated by fiction, except in caricature, Orthodox Jewish Settlers in the disputed Israeli-Palestinian territories.